Mystery Pier Books

Harvey and Louis M. Jason opened Mystery Pier Books in 1998 intending to specialize in first-edition mysteries. But the focus broadened to "the 19th to 20th century big ones" when the father-and-son duo saw how visitors to their Sunset Strip rare-book emporium zeroed in on Steinbeck, Hemingway and Faulkner. "We're a nation of collectors," says Harvey. "We're also a nation of investors. Books appreciate more quickly than paintings or sculpture; unlike the stock market, there's no risk."

Strip Ease THE TOWER BAR, 8358 W. SUNSET BLVD., 323 848-6677 On a recent night at the intimate Tower Bar, Jennifer Aniston dines 10 feet away from Joaquin Phoenix and white-coated waiters weave between tables like players in a Broadway musical. A $155 bottle of Pinot Noir is uncorked here, chilled oysters delivered there and a bow given every now and then.

SOME people devour books. Tin Wornom inhales them. "The smell of old books is enough to reel me into ecstasy," says Wornom, who collects rare volumes on English history. "Sometimes [the books are] musty, sometimes with a strange maple smell. Some smell of incense from being stored in a monastery for hundreds and hundreds of years." In fact, the wardrobe stylist for commercials reveres her collection so much that it has its own room in her Toluca Lake apartment.